text:
Go to
Lessons for
Past lessons
for Grades 9-12
Grades 9-12
, week of
Apr 21, 2014
1. Wrongly Jailed 25 years
Jonathan Fleming has been freed after 25 years behind bars, and cleared of a murder that took place while he was at Disney World, 1,100 miles from the murder scene in Brooklyn, N.Y. A key witness has recanted in his case, and a hotel receipt turned up that puts Fleming, now 51, in Florida hours before the killing. He was convicted earlier, despite plane tickets, videos and postcards entered by the defense as evidence he was in Orlando at the time of the 1989 killing of a friend. Criminal cases often are in the news, and how lawyers defend accused people is a key part of the story. Find a story about a criminal case or trial in the newspaper or online. Closely read the story and write a summary of the defense lawyer's strategy and how effective you think it will be.
Common Core State Standards: Reading closely what a text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; citing specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions.
2. To Be or Not To Be
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. His plays, such as "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet," proved so enduring that they are still read and taught today and have even been made into modern movies. Shakespeare didn't come up with all the ideas for his plays on his own. Many of his famous works were based on real events. In teams or pairs, pick an article in the newspaper and write a short play based on the people, events or location in the article. Or just write the opening scene.
Common Core State Standards: Writing narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events; demonstrating understanding of figurative language; applying knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts.
3. Wrong Hancock
"On the Cover of the Rolling Stone" was a popular song years ago, but it's back in the news because Julia Louis-Dreyfus has caused controversy for being on the front page of the magazine. It's not because the actress appears nude (which she does), but because of a faux tattoo on her naked back. It's supposed to be part of the U.S. Constitution, with John Hancock's famous signature at the bottom. Except that Hancock didn't sign the Constitution; he signed the Declaration of Independence. On the TV series "Veep," Dreyfus plays a bumbling vice president (fully clothed), and Rolling Stone was trying to call attention to the show. The Constitution sets up the U.S. government and in the first 10 amendments outlines some of Americans' most important rights. As a class, discuss the rights in the first 10 amendments. Then find examples of the rights in the news stories of the newspaper. Pick one and write how the amendment affects daily life.
Common Core State Standards: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task; conducting short research projects that build knowledge about a topic.
4. 'The Good Grammar Bandit'
A man who has been robbing banks in Denver, Colorado, has been dubbed "The Good Grammar Bandit" by the FBI. The spelling and punctuation in his written demand notes have been perfect. The robber is described as a tall, slender black man, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, hat and sunglasses. He is believed to have robbed three banks this month, fleeing on foot. The FBI will not disclose how much money he has stolen — but his nouns and verbs agree. Knowing correct grammar will help you throughout life, in job applications, consumer communications or any career that requires writing. Practice by writing a letter to apply for a job you find in the Help Wanted section of the newspaper classified ads. Include a summary of your qualifications, skills and goals. Exchange with a classmate and check each other's grammar and spelling.
Common Core State Standards: Identifying multiple language conventions and using them; recognizing nouns, verbs and modifiers; producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task;
5. What a Turnaround
Talk about doing double duty! Not long ago, opera singer Kristine Opolais was awakened by a phone call on a Saturday morning at 7:30, just a few hours after she had sung the title role in "Madama Butterfly" for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Could she return that afternoon to do the lead role of Mimi in "La Boheme?" The scheduled soprano was sick. The lead roles in "Butterfly" and "Boheme" are two of the most tiring and difficult in opera. But without rehearsal, Opolais took the stage before the Met's 3,800 matinee attendees and a radio and movie-theater audience of 300,000 and played Mimi, a role she had done elsewhere, but not at the Met. Performers often give audiences "something extra" when they perform. In the newspaper, find a performer you like who is known for "extra" effort. Write a review of this performer, detailing why you like him or her.
Common Core State Standards: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task Writing opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information; citing specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions.


text:
Hi, the notebook I use for work has a MASSIVELY irritating problem with the display. Our IT administrators have proven incapable of identifying the problem, so I'm now posting the question here.
The attached picture shows an example of what the display does. It is most prevalent when I use Excel, but it happens on most other software as well. This afternoon I attached a second monitor to work across a spreadsheet and presentation, and the same thing happened on the second monitor. In fact the problem was worse on the second monitor... The only way to correct the display is to drag the mouse over the areas you want to see. Or alternatively to minimise and restore the window itself...
At this stage my best guess are that the graphics card is either failing, or I have too little memory, or the processor is too slow.
The system spec is:
HP Probook 4520s
Intel Core i3-350M
2Gb RAM
Onboard Intel HD Graphics
Windows 7 Professional 32-bit
Any ideas?
Any ideas, anyone...?
Unfortunately I have no answer. I am seeing the same problem with 2 Dell laptop models- E4310 and E6510
Windows XP Pro
Intel HD Graphics
i5 Intel Core Processor
Installed graphics driver from both Dell and Intel's website
Upgraded BIOS to latest
Downgraded Windows Intaller 4 (we have seen some issues with resolution when displaying over projector with version 4)
Not sure what causes it and the resolutions above have been hit or miss- sometimes one or more of these fix the problem, other times not.
Good luck.
Hi VJ
Thanks for your response! At least I know I'm not the only one...
I have subsequently had a further 4Gb RAM installed, and it has not resolved the problem.
Have now asked that the entire motherboard be replaced (at the notebook is still under warranty) in the last hope that this is simply a hardware problem or pending failure.
Not sure if anyone else has had a similar problem?
I can report the same problem, but only while running on batteries. I think it has been that way since I got the PC a year ago. Installed most recent Intel drivers - didn't help. Any fixes?
Dell Latitude E6510. Windows XP SP2. 4 Gb memory.
Unfortunately I don't have a solution for this, but I'm also one of those suffering from this.
I have a brand new Lenovo T420 and it's pretty much unusable because of this problem.
I really hope that Intel would wake up and do something about this.
Sadly, the RAM upgrade made no difference.
About two weeks ago, a HP technical consultant from the UK advised me that this is a problem caused by MS Office (i.e. this is a software issue). He advised me to uninstall Office completely (including Outlook) and re-install.
I did this, and since I was due for the upgrade anyway, Office 2010 was installed in place of 2007, after uninstalling 2007 completely.
And guess what, the problem is back with a vengeance. I am now reasonably convinced that this is a hardware failure of some description, particularly after other replies to this post, which are not limited to any specific manufacturer, other than the common denominator of having Intel onboard graphics...
I've asked our IT department to replace the laptop or the motherboard entirely, whichever comes first.
It appears Intel Graphic accelator driver problem. I had similar problem with some video playback. New driver released April-2011 should help.
Try this (I had the same problem on my laptop):
Go to the video control panel (Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel) and click on the Power tab
Under "Power Plans" select "Maximum Performance" button - make sure you do this for both "Plugged In" and "Battery" options.
Click Apply
Hope this helps...
I have a staff member with this exact problem. None of the potential solutions in this topic have provided relief.
Has anyone solved this conclusively yet?
Same Problem here - tried many actions, no result.
Grahics Modes, Updates, Power Arrangements etc.
Use Win7 SP1 on a Motion Tablett J3500
Hope somebody cracks this soon because it is very annoying. My dealer says to reinstall - but this takes much time.
Has somebdy had a positive result after setting up the ystem new?
just an update (no solution)
We've also tried the following:
rebuilding the harrdrive
replacing the motherboard
replacing the entire computer with a a new one of the same make and model and rebuilding the harddrive
upgrading the graphics driver
downgrading the graphics driver
We are seeing two manifestations of this issue. The one is as described in this original post, the other is that entire horizontal sections of a window remain behind when another application is maximized. Sometimes refreshing the screen works, sometimes not. In some cases the machine performance degrades to the point that it has to be hard booted, in other cases if you leave the machine alone for 10 minutes or so, it will recover. CPU and Page File Usage looks fine during these episodes.
The issue occurs in and out of the dock though I've only personally seen it while in the dock. I can't say if in all cases only a single external monitor is attached or if it occurs with dual monitors.
It looks like a screen refresh problem but we just have not been able to duplicate the issue in a test environment. I can't say for certain it is hardware or software since, on the one hand no matter what we've attempted software-wise it hasn't resolved it, and replacing hardware hasn't resolved it either.
We do not see this on all machines of this make and model, just a small population.
We now have a person on point in our organization who will be working with Dell and Intel to hopefully find a resolution.
Hi all,
I have a similar situation what I have figured is that uninstalling the Intel driver and leaving the Windows generic VGA driver works better. Anyway's in my situation works fine as the computer is only used for limited software use, no real graphics needed works fine.
This helped immensely! Thanks!!
Cong_99 had the solution that worked for our PCs.

subset: commoncrawl